Extended School Building Facilities Closure From Third-Grade Perspectives

• In Event: Early Educational Environments

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic caused severe disruption to human development worldwide, especially elementary-aged students. This instrumental case study investigates how third graders in a rural southeastern community experienced the sudden, extended closure of their school building facilities triggered by this health emergency. Multiple stakeholder perspectives were gathered through semi-structured interviews with the elementary school principal, three third-grade classroom teachers, three third-grade students, and three student family members, along with classroom observations, corresponding documents and artifacts. Interview commentaries and weekly reflective commentary journal entries were employed to deal with data validation and reliability. Salient findings demonstrate that the extended school facilities closure exerted a negative impact on third graders’ personal development, and that distance learning was particularly challenging for these students.

Authors

• Ha Thi Viet Nguyen, Ton Duc Thang University
  Presenting Author

• Kristin H. Javorsky, Mississippi State University
  Presenting Author

• Dana P. Franz, Mississippi State University
  Presenting Author

• Kathleen Marie Alley, Mississippi State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jianzhong Xu, Mississippi State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Trung Nguyen, Winona State University
  Non-Presenting Author